| |
Do Make Say Think
You, You're a History in Rust
Constellation - 2007
Michael Panontin
|
It has been nearly a decade since Toronto post-rock instrumentalists Do Make Say Think's first sonic stirrings - the spacy meanderings of their eponymous debut and the more chafing guitar work of the follow-up Good-bye Enemy Airship, the Landlord is Dead still resonate with intensity. But the band, by now stalwarts on the constantly evolving Constellation label, have long since strayed from the potent and mesmerizing rumblings of those early discs, having settled into a more blissed-out, acoustic course. Recorded mostly at various rural settings across Ontario, You, You're a History in Rust, their fifth long-player, is pastoral and carefree, weaving lush tapestries of wistful, feathery guitar over gently syncopated rhythms.
The disc is rife with the sort of languid, bucolic guitar work that made their previous two discs, & Yet & Yet and Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn so richly compelling. The opener 'Bound to Be That Way" awakens casually from its sleepy intro of balmy Jim O'Rourke-like acoustic guitar and supple syncopation, and then unfolds into an exhilarating, tonic piece of music, the ever-so-subtle horns that punctuate it giving it an understated brilliance. 'A With Living' follows with the same leisurely format, though with added vocals, backed by Akron/Family, that feel somewhat more lumbering than lovely. 'Executioner Blues' and 'The Universe!' are more electric, the former buoyed by staccato rhythms and meandering guitar and the latter juiced with breathtakingly irascible and soaring guitars. The quasi-title track 'A Tender History in Rust', which follows the riotous big bang of 'The Universe!', has an almost cleansing effect in its acoustic simplicity.
A subtle, self-assured and ultimately sublime disc.
|
Do Make Say Think
Constellation
|
Suggestions
Automatisme
Non-representation Field (download track)
Constellation
JOYFULTALK
Familiar Science
Constellation
Hiss Tracts
Shortwave Nights
Constellation
Last Ex
Last Ex
Constellation
Siskiyou
Siskiyou
Constellation
|
